The use of so-called manufacturing execution systems (MES) for the automation of production or manufacturing processes is known from “Software für die Automatisierung—Transparenz über die Abläufe schaffen” (Software for automation—creating transparency for the processes), article by Dirk Kozian in Elektronik für die Automatisierung 11 (Electronics for automation), 17 Nov. 1999. These systems integrate the automation level (controls) with the ERP systems (ERP: Enterprise Resource Planning) of the company management level. Manufacturing execution systems are systems which for example provide information for the optimization of production processes, and/or perform the coordination or optimization of the production processes. On the one hand, the manufacturing execution systems must supplement the rough planning data used in the ERP systems with installation-specific and current fine planning data and pass this on to the subordinate automation level, on the other hand they have the task of taking over production-related information from the automation level, editing it and reporting it to the company management level. One of the functions implemented by MES systems is thus vertical integration between the company management level and the automation level. Typical individual tasks performed by MES systems are enterprise asset management, maintenance management, information management, scheduling, dispatching, and trace and tracking. These tasks are carried out in each case by MES components or MES applications.
In the classic programming languages (such as Pascal or Fortran) which were used in the eighties for writing software, data and functions were separate. Only in the course of the paradigm of object orientation were data and functions combined to form objects. During the nineties, meta data was assigned to the objects in individual cases as an initial stage. Meta data is information about other information, for example information about available objects themselves. Although this meta data is available in the overall system or in the overall context, it is however neither stored physically in an object, nor does it contain knowledge about the application to be implemented for an industrial installation or about the business process to be implemented.
Programmable automation systems or MES systems, in other words systems for controlling and/or regulating automated processes or installations, as a rule contain a so-called runtime system for providing time-based sequence control of an automation component, a machine or a system, and also a so-called engineering system for creating and editing control programs and installation functions which are intended for execution in the runtime system. Normally, many information items characterizing the automation or MES system (for example: constituents of the automation system, technological contexts, business process specifications etc.) are available only on the engineering system or on external data storage facilities and/or as employee know-how.